- Bank Of Ghana Fraud Report: Mobile Money and Fintech Now Ghana’s Biggest Fraud Battleground
Ghana’s financial fraud problem is changing shape. It is moving away from the traditional banking hall and deeper into the mobile phones, fintech platforms and digital wallets that now carry much of the country’s everyday financial life.
That is the clearest message from the Bank of Ghana’s 2025 Fraud Report covering banks, Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions and Payment Service Providers.
The report shows that total reported fraud cases across the three regulated sub-sectors rose sharply from 16,733 in 2024 to 24,778 in 2025, representing an increase of 48.00%. Yet the total value at risk increased only marginally from GH¢99 million to GH¢101 million.
This means fraud is becoming more frequent, but not necessarily more concentrated in a few large-value banking incidents. Instead, it is spreading through the high-volume, lower-value world of digital payments.
The Bank of Ghana’s own diagnosis is direct: fraud activity has “progressively migrated towards the PSP sector,” closely linked to rapid growth in transaction volumes and relatively lower levels of digital literacy among users, despite the sector’s important role in financial inclusion.
That sentence should worry every policymaker, bank executive, fintech founder and mobile money user.
For more than a decade, Ghana’s digital finance story has been told largely as a success story. Mobile money has brought millions of people into the financial system. It has made payments easier for traders, drivers, students, churches, households and small businesses. It has helped reduce the dependence on cash and created a more convenient route for savings, transfers, merchant payments and digital commerce.
But the same infrastructure that has widened access has also created a new fraud frontier. In 2025, Payment Service Providers recorded 24,124 fraud cases, up from 15,673 in 2024. This represents a 54.00% rise. The value at risk in the PSP sector also nearly doubled, rising from GH¢19 million in 2024 to GH¢37 million in 2025, an increase of 95.00%.
By contrast, banks appear to be getting safer. Fraud cases in the banking sector fell from 716 in 2024 to 472 in 2025, a decline of 34.00%. The value at risk to banks also fell from GH¢75 million to GH¢57 million, representing a 24.00% reduction.
Specialised Deposit-Taking Institutions also recorded fewer cases, with fraud incidents falling from 344 to 182, a decline of 47.00%. But their value at risk increased from GH¢4.5 million to GH¢8 million, reflecting the danger that fewer incidents can still produce heavier losses when controls fail.
The numbers tell a powerful story. Banks and SDIs are reducing the number of reported fraud incidents. PSPs are moving in the opposite direction.
In simple terms, fraudsters are following customers. As more Ghanaians move money through mobile money wallets, fintech applications and digital payment platforms, criminals are adapting. The fraud target is no longer only the cheque book, the forged document or the bank counter. It is now the mobile phone screen, the payment prompt, the SIM card, the fake call, the wrong link, the impersonated service agent and the social engineering trick.
Digital finance works because it is instant, convenient and accessible. But those same qualities also make fraud easier to execute quickly. A victim can be deceived into approving a transaction within seconds. A fraudulent wallet can receive funds immediately. A scammer can disappear before the victim understands what has happened.
Bank of Ghana’s report, therefore, raises a difficult question: has Ghana’s digital financial transformation moved faster than consumer protection?
The answer appears to be yes. The financial inclusion gains are real and must be protected. But the fraud data suggests that many consumers are using digital tools without enough knowledge of how to identify risks. Digital literacy has not kept pace with digital adoption.
This gap is dangerous. A person may know how to send mobile money but may not know how to detect a fake customer service call. A trader may know how to receive payment but may not know how to protect a merchant wallet. A student may know how to use a fintech app but may not understand phishing. An elderly user may trust anyone who claims to be calling from a mobile money operator.
The fraudster thrives in that gap between access and understanding.
This does not mean PSPs are failing Ghana. On the contrary, their growth has been central to financial inclusion. But it does mean the next phase of digital finance must be built around trust, security and user protection, not just transaction growth.
The Bank of Ghana’s report makes this point indirectly by showing how the fraud burden has shifted. In 2025, PSPs accounted for 24,124 of the 24,778 total reported fraud cases across the three regulated sectors. That means PSPs accounted for about 97.36% of all reported fraud cases.
That figure is striking.
It does not necessarily mean PSPs are weaker than banks in every respect. It may partly reflect the huge number of small digital transactions that now pass through PSP platforms. But it does show where fraud is now most visible, most frequent and most likely to affect ordinary users.
Banks, meanwhile, still carry large-value risks. One major cash suppression incident involving about GH¢36 million helped push cash suppression to the top of banking sector fraud by value in 2025. But the broader trend is that banks are recording fewer fraud cases and lower value at risk. This creates a two-track fraud economy.
In banks, the risks may be fewer but can be very large. In PSPs, the risks are more frequent and widely distributed among users. That distinction matters for regulation.
Traditional banking supervision focuses heavily on institutional controls, internal audit, staff conduct, documentation, credit processes and transaction monitoring. PSP regulation must go further into customer behaviour, interface design, agent networks, wallet limits, real-time alerts, SIM-related risks and public education.
The regulator cannot fight PSP fraud only from the boardroom. It must fight it at the level of the market woman, the trotro passenger, the online seller, the student, the small merchant and the rural mobile money user.
This is where public education becomes a financial stability tool.
The Bank of Ghana concludes that addressing fraud requires a unified and sustained effort by financial institutions, law enforcement agencies, regulatory bodies and the public. It also warns that as digitalisation and innovation deepen, the financial landscape becomes more complex and fraud risks continue to evolve.
That conclusion is correct, but the urgency must now increase.
Mobile money and fintech fraud should no longer be treated as a customer-service problem. It is a financial sector confidence problem.
If users begin to believe that digital wallets are unsafe, they may reduce usage or return to cash. If merchants lose confidence, digital payments will suffer. If fraud losses keep rising, fintech operators may face pressure from regulators, investors and customers. If public trust weakens, Ghana’s cash-lite agenda could slow.
The policy response must therefore be sharper in our opinion at NorvanReports. First, PSPs must invest more in fraud detection, real-time transaction monitoring and account-risk profiling. A fast payment system requires faster fraud response.
Second, telecom companies, PSPs and banks must share fraud intelligence more effectively. Fraudsters often move across platforms. A suspicious number or wallet on one platform should trigger stronger scrutiny across the ecosystem.
Third, law enforcement must improve recovery and prosecution. If fraudsters believe digital theft carries little consequence, the incentive to continue remains strong.
Fourth, customer education must be constant, simple and targeted. It should not be limited to occasional awareness campaigns. It must become part of onboarding, transaction prompts, agent training, school education and community outreach.
Fifth, regulators must ensure that innovation does not become a hiding place for weak controls. Ghana needs fintech growth, but not growth that shifts risk unfairly onto consumers.
The Bank of Ghana report should therefore be read as more than a fraud update. It is a warning about the next stage of Ghana’s financial modernisation.
The country has done well to expand access to digital finance. But access without protection can become exposure.
The new fraud battlefield is not behind the counters of banks. It is in the pockets of millions of Ghanaians.
That makes the fight against fraud more difficult, more personal and more urgent.
Ghana’s digital finance revolution has already changed how people move money. The task now is to ensure it does not also become the easiest route through which criminals take it away.
